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[I am phasing out D&I at typepad. This post was first published at: digressions.impressions.substack here. To receive new posts and support my work consider becoming a paid subscriber at <digressionsimpressions.substack.com>]
Ideals and Illusions, Susan Stebbing's (1941) moving wartime work, published while she and the Kingsley Lodge school for girls (of which she remained the principal in addition to being the first female British philosophy professor) had moved to the far end of Cornwall, aims to rectify the absence of an ideal that speaks to what one may call democratic and spiritual yearning in British public life.* In fact, Ideals and Illusions, deserves some mention in the history of political theory. While not wishing to ignore some of the limitations of the work, I list three reasons that, perhaps, invite you to read this book.
First, Ideals and Illusions decisively challenges an idea then promoted by political realists of her age (especially E.H. Carr) that debate between realists and democratic theorists within political theory is, and now I quote Hans Morgenthau (who explicitly cites Stebbing), "...tantamount to a contest between principle and expediency, morality and immorality." Morgenthau (1952) de facto concedes Stebbing point, and this led him to reformulate political realism (and its opposition to a kind of democratic idealism as follows): "The contest is rather between one type of political morality and another type of political morality, one taking as its standard universal moral principles abstractly formulated, the other weighing these principles against the moral requirements of concrete political action, their relative merits to be decided by a prudent evaluation of the political consequences to which they are likely to lead." (p. 988; see note 25) To what degree Stebbing would eschew paying attention to prudent evaluation of political consequences may well be doubted. (I return to that some day.)
But the important point here is that Stebbing's criticism of Carr shaped the development of the most influential articulation of post-war realism (in IR).+ And it it is worth noting that Ernest Nagel, who was a serious admirer of Stebbing (1885 –1943), was (in 1947) quite critical of Morgenthau's version of such realism. There is, thus, lurking in the relatively early history of analytic philosophy a polemic, from the perspective of a democratic and liberal theory, with (so-called) political realism that has gone largely unnoticed. (I have discussed Nagel's polemic a bit here. )
Be that as it may, as is well known, in his autobiographic manifesto Liam Kofi Bright writes: "There is something within us that takes joy in the happiness of others, sees their misery as something regrettable, and compels us to act in solidarity and friendship with fellows." In an accompanying footnote, Bright cites (rightly) the fourth chapter of Stebbing's Ideals and Illusions. This chapter articulates a democratic creed that is explicitly indebted to the preamble of the American declaration. Stebbing connects this creed eloquently to Bentham's and Mill's frontal attack on acquiescence in human suffering. Stebbing is by no means a utilitarian/Radical, but she recovers the enduring significance of the Radical program (which one wishes contemporary longtermists would heed).
But not unlike Jefferson, she inscribes her ideal in a republican political philosophy (while being more attentive to the ills of slavery). In fact, and this is my second point, she deserves to be re-inscribed in the genealogy of modern republicanism, for after claiming that her creed can be captured with the ethical principle, "all men alike ought to be free and happy," she writes:
The democratic ideal does not confine a man within the limitations of his own narrowly conceived self-interest; it widens his interests to include all men, so far as this is possible to the limited intellectual grasp and the groping imagination of a finite human being. To achieve this ideal we must make such political machinery as will enable every man to have his needs considered and to contribute to the working of this machinery according to his ability. No one must be slave to another nor subject to the arbitrary will of any of his fellows, whether he lead or be led. We must create such an economic order as to allow to every man the satisfaction of his primary needs and to permit the development of himself as an individual. (Chapter VII, "Conflicting Ideals," p. 157)
Stebbing clearly embraces the idea that being subject to the arbitrary will of another is a fundamental problem in political and economic life and should be combatted. While rejecting Marxist economics (and explicitly rejects Marx as "prophet"), she quotes The Communist Manifesto approvingly on the idea of "a community of individuals, each of whom counts, associated together in such a way that 46 the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all.” (pp. 144-145) Stebbing's republicanism was already visible, and (as I discerned) presupposed, in her (1939) Thinking to Some Purpose, but it is much more subtly and carefully developed in Ideals and Illusions not as a normative theory in a post-Rawlsian sense, but as a living faith apt for her times. (I return to that below.)
Third, one of the key theme among my friends in the ‘'bleeding heart’ wing of contemporary libertarianism is the insight that the closed border regimes of our age are not just a frontal attack on the rights of outsiders or non-natives, but are a very sly and insidious attack on the rights and lives of citizens/insiders who often don't realize initially that many of their own liberties are undermined (often due to aggressive policing of border zones, but not limited to this). I first learned the point from Jacob T. Levy, and it’s a very important theme in Kukathas' Immigration and Freedom. (Levy and Kukathas are, thereby, developing an insight lurking in Mises but not as well developed there as one would wish.) I don't mean to suggest it's only a libertarian talking point; many (Foucault-inflected) scholars in security/immigration studies have developed a similar analysis (and as a skeptical liberal I will make it my own).
Here's Stebbing's version of a related insight:
[D]uring the Victorian age and up to the outbreak of the 1914-18 war there was considerable advancement in the direction of the ideal of the American revolution. It is convenient to call this the ideal of a civilized democracy. This ideal is far from having been accomplished. That, however, is not the point that is of main importance for my present purpose. The point is that it was an ideal consciously held and, on the whole, deliberately pursued. The moral significance of this period lies in the fact that there was a widespread conviction that there was an ideal worth pursuing, that there were high aims to the achievement of which a man might fittingly devote his life; to live strenuously for an ideal is more difficult and exacting than to be prepared to die for it. During the last twenty years this ideal has not only been explicitly denied and vilified in certain countries, it has further faded as an ideal even in those countries where the citizens continue to admire the sound of the word “ democracy.” For, it must be remembered, the democratic ideal is founded upon the moral principle that all men alike ought to be free and happy. It requires a temper of mind free from suspicion of others, from hatred of the foreigner, and from intolerance. It requires further an active sympathy with those who are oppressed. In all these respects the last twenty years have seen a serious deterioration. Before the last war it was possible to travel from one end of Europe to the other without a passport; during the last twenty years it has not been possible. This may seem unimportant; in fact, it is not. Its importance is that it is a symptom of the change for the worse that has befallen us. Each State in turn has tightened its restrictions upon the entry of foreigners. In a world which is economically so interdependent that it may be said to be a unity, certain of the most powerful States strive to be wholly sufficient in their economic requirements. The growth of economic internationalism is in conflict with an emotionally sustained nationalism. Hatred of others is fostered. (Chapter VI, pp. 112-113 [emphasis added—ES.])
What I wish to highlight here is that Stebbing discerns that a closed border policy doesn't just restrict the inflow of people, commodities, and capital, it also transforms the very ideals, the pattern of thoughts, and even morals of one's own polity. For Stebbing a 'temper of mind' -- we might say ethos -- is rather important to democratic life. With this diagnosis she is rather close to the liberal-realists explored (recall) by Cherniss in his recent Liberalism in Dark Times: The Liberal Ethos in the Twentieth Century.
Okay, let me wrap up. I leave you to discover her fantastic genealogical analysis of conscience, and her excellent critique of Bradley's political theory amongst other gems. I have suggested before (recall here; here etc.) that the narrative that there 'was no political philosophy within analytic philosophy' before Rawls is a lie that keeps us in a self-imposed tutelage. To be sure, this fact is difficult to see as a consequence of the division of labor in which (inter alia) economics and philosophy split, and political philosophers became specialists in normative theory and judge each other accordingly. From the perspective of contemporary philosophy, Stebbing’s book would seem to lack something.
But in so far as political philosophy aspires to educate the thoughtful citizenry in the reasons for its commitments (it should hold), Stebbing's book is, warts and all (and I have not developed my criticisms here), without parallel in early analytic philosophy. (No, I am not ignoring Popper or Russell's political essays!) Neurath insisted on the very point in 1946:
*For a summary of the book, I recommend chapter 8 of Siobhan Chapman. Susan Stebbing and the language of common sense. 2013.
+For some further details see S. Molloy (2006) The Hidden History of Realism: A Genealogy of Power Politics, pp. 64-70. (Molloy treats Stebbing as a historian of science.) In a different work, Peter Wilson (2000) acknowledges the significance and cogency of Stebbing's criticism, but suggests she drew heavily from Leonard Woolf. (I have not been able yet to verify this.)
**This is also quoted in Chapman's book, p. 165.
First of all, it is important to recognize that the basic liberties must be assessed as a whole, as one system. That is, the worth of one liberty normally depends upon the specification of the other liberties, and this must be taken into account in framing a constitution and in legislation generally. While it is by and large true that a greater liberty is preferable, this holds primarily for the system of liberty as a whole, and not for each particular liberty. Clearly when the liberties are left unrestricted they collide with one another. To illustrate by an obvious example, certain rules of order are necessary for intelligent and profitable discussion. Without the acceptance of reasonable procedures of inquiry and debate, freedom of speech loses its value. It is essential in this case to distinguish between rules of order and rules restricting the content of speech. While rules of order limit our freedom, since we cannot speak whenever we please, they are required to gain the benefits of this liberty. Thus the delegates to a constitutional convention, or the members of the legislature, must decide how the various liberties are to be specified so as to yield the best total system of equal liberty. They have to balance one liberty against another. --John Rawls A Theory of Justice, p. 203. {Emphasis added--ES}
At one point, in his marvelous (1989) Hayek and Modern Liberalism, Chandran Kukathas quotes from Rawls' A Theory of Justice in order to illuminate the point that "conflicts among different pursuers of values are best regulated according to principles which respect (the right to) liberty." (p. 147) Kukathas quotes the part I have highlighted and italicized. I want to call this part Rawls' "ordered conception of free speech" stance. (One might also call it 'the rule governed conception of free speech' or the 'transcendental conception of free speech' etc.) And its that highlighted and italicized material that triggered this post.
While Rawls goes on to discuss Mill's On Liberty in the next sections (on freedom of conscience), he does not comment on the fact that the ordered conception of free speech is at variance with the more tumultuous conception of free speech that is usually ascribed to On Liberty. I put it like that because I don't want to perpetuate the error that Mill holds 'a free market in ideas that will lead to truth view' although the marketplace of ideas view is even more frequently (and, as Jill Gordon persuasively argues, mistakenly) attributed to Mill (recall this post); recall also see, for example, here; here, and here.)
One reason to call it Rawls' account an 'ordered conception' of speech is that the value he ascribes to it is articulated in functional terms. One might say that for Rawls the intelligibility of freedom of speech presupposes that it has a certain function namely to produce 'intelligent and profitable' speech (which he may have inherited from Knight--see the second picture). Leaving aside the elitist commitments on display here (and, if one wishes, the generosity toward profit if we read him over-literally), lots of emotionally significant expressive speech clearly is not like that even if it falls short of the vituperative speech that Mill worries about. In fact, this contrast between expression and discussion is explicit on p. 346 in Frank Knight's treatment of some such contrast, and is one of the heavily annotated passages in Rawls' copy of The Ethics of Competition.*
The following is from p. 352 in Knight:
Now, before I continue, I do not want to claim that Rawls thinks governments have very broad scope to regulate speech to make it 'intelligent and profitable' or to promote the ordered conception. He may well also believe that this would be imprudent or, that the enforcement of speech restrictions, would generate concerns about violations of other liberties (privacy, assembly, freedom of conscience, etc.). And he may also think that when the government regulates speech it really is interested in content and not order (and so cannot be trusted to get this right). In fact, in A Theory of Justice Rawls is by and large not that interested in freedom of speech. But one can see why the functional significance of the ordered conception lends itself well to the rather extensive speech restrictions (in selling financial instruments, in selling pharmaceuticals, in selling tobacco, etc. ) which are quite common in the contemporary administrative state (and often ignored in recent public debates over woke and freedom of speech).
As an aside, I don't mean to satirize the ordered conception of speech. It clearly has debts to Knight's and Buchanan's diverging conceptualizations of liberalism as involving "democracy as government by discussion" that was, as I have suggested above, have been familiar to Rawls. (I also think one can extract the ordered conception from Mill's writings on representation.) I am myself not immune to the pull of the ordered conception of speech in some contexts. For example, it informs my own views on academic freedom which fundamentally involves ordered speech of different kinds (in journals, the seminar room, etc.) I also tend to suspect (echoing Iris Marion Young) that advocates of deliberative democracy and (closer to Rawls' own heart) public reason tend to be (dangerously) enthralled by the ordered conception of speech.
Be that as it may, if one works with the revised (1990) edition of A Theory of Justice, the ordered conception is less pronounced. In fact, the passage is re-written in non trivial ways. Among the most significant changes, the revised version of the passage removes 'intelligent and profitable" and the distinction between rules of order and rules on content altogether:
First of all, one must keep in mind that the basic liberties are to be assessed as a whole, as one system. The worth of one such liberty normally depends upon the specification of the other liberties. Second, I assume that under reasonably favorable conditions there is always a way of defining these liberties so that the most central applications of each can be simultaneously secured and the most fundamental interests protected. Or at least that this is possible provided the two principles and their associated priorities are consistently adhered to. Finally, given such a specification of the basic liberties, it is assumed to be clear for the most part whether an institution or law actually restricts a basic liberty or merely regulates it. For example, certain rules of order are necessary for regulating discussion; without the acceptance of reasonable procedures of inquiry and debate, freedom of speech loses its value. On the other hand, a prohibition against holding or arguing for certain religious, moral, or political views is a restriction of liberty and must be judged accordingly. Thus as delegates in a constitutional convention, or as members of a legislature, the parties must decide how the various liberties are to be specified so as to give the best total system of liberty. They must note the distinction between regulation and restriction, but at many points they will have to balance one basic liberty against another; for example, freedom of speech against the right to a fair trial. The best arrangement of the several liberties depends upon the totality of limitations to which they are subject.--John Rawls A Theory of Justice, Revised edition, p. 178. {emphasis added--ES}
I suspect part of the change of wording is due to that it is easy to abuse a purported restriction on order as a restriction on content. For, while officially dropping the distinction, the revised version leans into denying the government any significant content restrictions, by adding the point that "a prohibition against holding or arguing for certain religious, moral, or political views is a restriction of liberty." But as the highlighted part suggests, even so, the crucial element of the ordered conception of speech does remain in the revised version.
Let me close with a sociological observation. Despite the fact that advocates of public reason and deliberative democracy, which lean heavily on conceptions of ordered speech, have thriving research programs (and the former is very indebted to Rawls), it is safe to say that Rawls' conception of freedom of speech has not been as influential as other parts of his project. I have three kinds of evidence for this claim: first, in Katrina Forrester's In the Shadow of Justice, freedom of speech barely figures. (Of course, civil disobedience does!) Second, the emphasized and italicized parts of the passages are quoted very rarely in the secondary literature (although I found it in a few dissertations especially). Third, it is my perception that in scholarly and more public intellectual discussions of free speech, Rawls' shadow has not, displaced Mill. Obviously my perception counts for nothing, but I would be amazed if data crunchers could show otherwise.
*PS After reading an earlier draft of the post, David M. Levy was kind enough to share some marking up of Rawls' personal copy of Knight's The Ethics of Competition (which has Knight's earliest use of 'government by discussion' as I learned from the paper by Ross Emmett linked above). The fact that Knight treats the rules of discussion as game is important evidence for Forrester's argument on the early Rawls' interest in what is now known as neoliberalism. For some other salient to the present post's passages see these pix:
From p. 343:
FreshRSS 